



' %'^^^'"/ ^^^*^-'\^^' %'^^t^%o'> 

^^^^^••\/ %*^^-/ ^^^!^*.^^ 

























,c^' 













''\ 






- -^...^" ^*^ 


















.v-^ 








V ••VL'* cv^ 



xO'^ •'••* 






I 



1860 Association. \ 
Tract, No. 5. J 



THE 



INTEREST IN SLAVERY 



OF THE 



Southern Non-Slaveholder. 



THE RIGHT OF PEACEFDL SECESSION. 



^ v-^' 



1,1,1^ 



SLAVERY IN THE BIBLE 



CHAELESTON : 

iTEAM-POWEU PRESSES OP EVANS h C0G3WBLL, 
No. 3 Broad and lOS East Bay Streets. 

1860. 



D^l 






THE 

Non-Slavclioldcrs of the South. 



Nashville, Dec. 5, 1800. 

Ml/ dear Sir: — Whilst in Charleston recently, I adverted, in 
conversation with you, to some considerations affecting the ques- 
tion of slavery in its application to the several classes of popula- 
tion at the South and especially to the non-slaveholding class, 
who, I maintained, were even more deeply interested tiian any 
other in the maititainance of our instilulioiis, and in the success 
of the movement now inaugurated, for the entire social, industrial 
and political independence of the South. At your request, I 
promised to elaborate and commit to writing the points of that 
conversation, which I now proceed to do, in the hope that I may 
thus he enabled to give some feeble aid to a cause which is worthy 
of the Sydneys, Hampdens and Patrick Henrys, of earlier times. 

When in charge of the national census office, several years 
since, I found that it had been stated by an abolition Senator 
from his seat, that the number of slaveholders at th(.' South did 
not exceed 150,000. Convinced that it was a gross misrepresen- 
tation of the facts, I caused a careful examination of the returns 
to be made, which fixed the actual number at :}47,255, and com- 
municated the information, b}^ note, to Senator Cass, who read it 
in the Senate. [ first called attention to the fact that the number 
embraced slaveholding families, and that to arrive at the actual 
number of slavehclders, it would be necessary to multiply by the 
proportion of persons, which the census showed to a family. 
When this was done, the number was swelled to about 2,000,000. 

Since these results were made public, I have had reason to 
thinlc, that the separation of the schedules of the slave and the free, 
was calculated to lead to omissions of the single properties, and 
that oil this account it would be safe to put the number of families 
at 875,000, and the number of actual slaveliolders at about two 
million and a quarter. 

Assuming the published returns, however, to be correct, it will 
appear thatone-half of ihe population of South Carolina, Mississippi, 
and Louisiana, excluding the cities, are slaveholders, and that 



one-lhird of the population of the entire South are similarly cir- 
cumstanced. The average number of slaves is nine to each 
slave-holding family, and one-half of the vi'hole number of such 
holders are in possession of le*ss than five slaves. 

It wiil thus appear that the slaveholders of the South, so far 
from constituting numerically an insignificant portion of its peo- 
ple, as has been malignantly alleged, make up an aggregate, 
greater in relative proportion than the holders of any other spe- 
cies of property whatever, ''n any part of the world ; and that of no 
other property can it be said, with equal truthfulnes, that it is 
an interest of the whole community. Whilst every other family 
in the States I have specially referred to, are slaveholders, but 
one family in every three and a half families in Maine, New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut, are holders of agri- 
cultural land; and, in European Slates, the proportion is almost 
indefinitely less. The proportion which the slaveholders of the 
South, bear to the entire population is greater than that of the 
owners of land or houses, agricultural stock, State, bank, or other 
corporation securities anywhere ' else. No political economist 
will deny this. Nor is that all. Even in the Slates which are 
among the largest slaveholding, South Carolina, Georgia and 
Tennessee, the land proprietors outnumber nearly two to one, in 
relative proportion, the owners of the same property in Maine, 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and if the average number of 
slaves held by each family throughout the South be but nine, 
, and if one-half of the whole number of slaveholders own under 
five slaves, it will be seen liow preposterous is the allegation of 
our enemies, that the slaveholding class is an organized wealthy 
aristocracy. The poor men of the Soitlh are the holders of one to 
five slaves, and it would be equally consistent with truth and jus- 
tice, to say that they represent, in reality, its slaveholding interest. 

The fact being conceded that there is a very large class of per- 
sons in the slaveholding States, who have no direct ownersliip in 
slaves; it may be well asked, upon Avhat principle a greater 
antagonism can be presumed between them and their fellow- 
citizens, than exists among the larger class of non-landholders 
in the free States and the landed interest there? If a conflict 
of interest exists, in one instance, it does in the other, and if 
patriotism and public spirit are to be measured upon so low a 
standard, the social fabric at the North is in far greater danger 
of dissolution than it is here. 

Though 1 protest against the false and degrading standard, to 
which Northern orators and statesmen have reduced the measure 
'of patriotism, which is to be expected from a free and enlightened 
people, and in the name of the non-slaveholders of the South, 
fling back the insolent cliarge that they are only bound to their 
country by its "loaves and fishes," and would be found derelict 
in honor and principle and public virtue in proportion as they are 
needy in circumstances; 1 think it but easy to show that the in- 



5 

terest of the poorest non-slaveholder among us, is to make common 
cause with, and die in the last trenches in defence of, the slave 
property of his more favored neighbor. 

The non-slaveholders of the South may be classed as either 
such as desire and are incapable of purchasing slaves, or such as 
have the means to purchase and do not because of the absence of 
the motive, preferring to hire or employ cheaper white labor. 
A class conscientiously objecting to the ownership of slave- 
property, does not exist at the South, for all such scruples have 
long since been silenced by the profound and unanswerable argu- 
ments to which Yankee controversy has driven our statesmen, 
popular orators and clergy. Upon the sure testimony of God's 
Holy Book, and upon the principles of universal polity, they bave 
defended and justified the institution. The exceptions which 
embrace recent importations into Virginia, and into some of the 
Southern cities from the free States of the North, and some of 
the crazy, socialistic Germans in Texas, are too unimportant to 
affect the truth of the proposition. 

The non-slaveholders are either urban or rural, including 
among the former tlie merchants, traders, mechanics, laborers 
and other classes in the towns and cities; and among the latter, 
the tillers of the soil in sections where slave pro,)erty either could, 
or could not be profitably employed. 

As the competition of free labor with slave labor is the gist of 
the argument used by the opponents of- slavery, and as it is uprn 
this that they rely in support of a future social conflict in our 
midst, it is clear that in cases where the competition cannot pos- 
sibly exist, the argument, whatever weight it might otherwise 
have, must fall to the ground. 

Now, from what can such competition be argued in our cities? 
Are not all the interests of the merchant and those whom he 
employs of necessity upon the side of the slaveholder? The 
products which he buys, the commodities which he sells, the 
profits which he realizes, the hopes of future fortune which sus- 
tain him; all spring from this source, and from no other. The 
cities, towns and villages of the South, are but so many agencies 
for converting the products of slave labor into the products of 
other labor obtained from abroad, and as in every ot!i(!r agency 
the interest of the agent is, that tlie principal shall have as mucli 
as possible to sell, and be enabled as much as pnssible to buy. 
In the absence of every other source of wealth at tlie South, its 
mercantile interests are so interwoven with those of slave labor 
as to be almost identical. What is true of the merchant is true 
of the clerk, the drayman, or the laborer whom he employs — the 
mechanic who builds his houses, the lawyer who argues his 
causes, the physician who heals, the teacher, the preacher, etc., 
etc. If the poor mechanic could have ever complained of the 
competition, in the cities, of slave labor with his, that cause oi 
complaint in the enormous increase of value of slave property has 



6 

failed, since such increase has been exhausliiit^ the cities anu 
towns of slave labor, or making it so valuable that lie can work in 
competition with it and receive a rale of remuneration greatly 
higher than in any of the non-slaveholding towns or cities at the 
North. In proof of this, it is only necessary to advert to the ex- 
ample of the City of Charleston, which has a larger proportion ot 
slaves than any other at the South, where the first flag of Southern 
independence was unfurled, and where the entire people, with 
one voice, rich and poor, merchant, mechanic and laborer, stand 
nobly togetlier. Another illustration may be found in the city 
of New York, almost as dependent upon Soulliern slavery as 
Charleston itself, which records a majority of nearly thirty thou- 
sand votes against the further progress of abolitionism. 

As the competition does not exist in the cities it is equally cer- 
tain that it does not exist in those sections of the South, which 
are employed upon the cultivation of commodities, in Avliich slave 
labor could not be used, and that there exists no conflict there 
except in the before stated cases o( Virginia and Texas, and some 
of the counties of Missouri. Maryland and Kenlucliy. These 
exceptions are, however, too unimportant to affect the great ques- 
tion of slavery in fifteen States of the South, and are so kept in 
check as to be incapable of effl'cting any mischief even in the 
communities referred to. It would be the baldest absurdity to 
suppose that the poor farmers of South Carolina, North Carolina 
and Tennessee, who grow corn, wheat, bacon and hogs and. 
horses, are brought into any sort of competition with the slaves 
of these or other States, who, while they consume these com- 
modities, produce but little or none of them. 

The competition and conflict, if such exist at the South, between 
slave labor and free labor, is reduced to the single case of such 
labor being employed side by side, in the production of the same 
commodities and could be felt only in the cane, cotton, tobacco 
and rice fields, where almost the entire agricultural slave labor 
is exhausted. Now, any one cognizant of the actual facts, will 
admit that the free labor which is emploj'ed upon these crops, 
disconnected from and in actual independence of the slave- 
holder, is a very insignificant item in the account, and whether in 
accord or in conflict would affect nothing the permanency and 
security of the institution. It is a competition from which the 
non-slaveholder cheerfully retires when the occasion offers, his 
physical organization refusing to endure that exposure to tropical 
suns and fatal miasmas which alone are the condition of profita- 
ble culture and any attempt to reverse the laws which God has 
ordained, is attended with disease and death. Of this the poor 
while foreign laborer upon our river swamps and in our southern 
cities, especially in Mobile and New Orleans, and upon the public 
works of the South, is a daily witness. 

Having then followed out, step by step, and seen to what 
amounts the so much paraded competition and conflict between 



ihe non-slaveholding' and slaveholding interests of the South; I 
will proceed to present several general considerations which 
must be found powerful enough to influence the non-slave- 
holders, if the claims of patriotism were inadequate, to resist any 
attempt to overthrow the institutions and industry of the section 
to which they belong. 

1. The non-slaveholder of the South is assured that the remtt- 
neration affoided by his labor, over and above the expense of living, 
is larger than that which is afforded by the same labor in the fret 
States. To be convinced of this lie has only to compare the 
value of labor in the Southern cities with those of the North, 
and to take note annually of the large number of laborers who 
are represented to be out of employment there, and who migrate 
to our shores, as well as to other sections. No white laborer in 
return has been forced to leave our midst or remain without 
employment. Such as have left, have immigrated from Stales 
where slavery was less productive. Those who come among us 
are enabled soon to retire to their homes with a handsome com- 
petency. The statement is nearly as true for the agricultural 
as for other interests, as the statistics will show. 

The following table was recently compiled by Senator Johnson, 
of Tennessee, from information received in reply to a circular 
letter sent to the points indicated. 

Daily wages in New Orleans, Charleston and Nashville : 

Bricklayers. Carpenters. Laborers: 
$2Jto3| ^2Ho2J $1 to U. 

Daily wages in Chicago, Pittsburg and Lowell, Mass. : 

Bricklayers. Carpenters. Laborers. 
$U to $2 $U to 11 75c to 81. 

The rates of board weekly for laborers as given in the census 
of 1850, were in Louisiana 62 70, South Carolina $1 75, Tennes- 
see $1 82, in Illinois ^1 49, Pennsylvania $1 72, Massachusselts 
$2 12. The wages of the agricultural classes as given in Parlia- 
mentary reports are in France 1^20 to $30 per annum with board. 
In Italy $12 to $20 per annum. In the United States agricultU' 
ral labor is highest in the Southwest, and lowest in the Northwest, 
the South and North differing very Jittle, by the official returns. 

2. The non-slaveholders, as a class, are not reduced by the neceS' 
sity of our condition, as is the case in the free States, to find employ-r 
ment in croivded cities and come into competition in close and sickly 
workshops and factories, with reriiorseless and untiring machinery. 
They have but to compare their condition in this particular with 
the mining and manufacturing operatives of the North and 
Europe, to be thankful that God has reserved them for a better 
fate. Tender women, aged men, delicate children, toil and labor 
there from early dawn until after candle light, from one year to 



another, for a miserable pittance, scarcely above the starvation 
point and without hope of amelioration. The records of British 
free labor have long exhibited this and those of our own manu- 
facturing States are rapidly reaching it and would have reached 
it long ago, but for the excessive bounties which in the way of 
tariff's have been paid to it, without an equivalent by the slave- 
holding and non-slaveholding laborer of the South. Let this 
tariff cease to be paid for a single year and the truth of what is 
stated will be abundantly shown. 

3. The non-slaveholder is not subjected to that competition with 
foreign pauper labor, which has degraded the free labor of the North 
(find demoralized it to an extent which perhaps can never be estimat- 
ed. From whatever- cause, it has happened, whether from cli- 
mate, the nature of our products or of our labor, the South has 
been enabled to maintain a more homogeneous population and • 
&how a less admixture of races than the North. This the sta- 
tistics show. 

RATIO OF FOREIGN TO NATIVE POPULATION. 

Eastern States 12.65 in every 100 

Middle States 19.84 '' " " 

Southern States 1.86 " <' 

South-western States 5 34 " " 

North-western States 12.75 " " 

Our people partake of the true American character, and are 
mainly the descendants of those who fought the battles of the 
Revolution, and who understand and appreciate the nature and 
inestimable value of the liberty which it brought. Adhering to 
the simple truths of the Gospel and the faith of their fathers, they 
have not run hither and thither in search of all the absurd and 
degrading isms. which have sprung up in the rank soil of infideli- 
ty." They are not Mormons or Spiritualists, they are not Owen- 
ites, Fourierites, Agrarians, Socialists, Free-lovers or Millerites. 
Thev are not for breaking down all the forms of society and of 
religion and re-constructing them; but prefer law, order and 
existing institutions to the chaos which radicalism involves. The 
competition between native and foreign labor in the Northern 
States, has already begotten rivalry and heart-burning, and riots; 
and lead to the formation of political parties there which have 
been marked by a degree of hostility and proscription to which 
the present age has not afforded another parallel. At the South 
we have known none of this, except in two or three of the 
larger cities, where the relations of slavery and freedom scarcely 
exist at all. The foreigners that are among us at the South are 
of a select class, and from education and example approximate 
very nearly t-o the native standard. 

4. The non-slaveholder of the South preserves the status of the 
white vian, and is not regarded as an inferior or a dependant. He 



9 

is not. told that the Declaration of Independence, when it says 
that all men are born free and equal, refers to the negro equally 
with liimself. It is not proposed to him that the (rei- negro's 
vote shall weigh equally \v\\h liis own at the ballot-box, and that 
the lilile children of boih colors shall be mixed in the classes and 
benches of the school-liouse, and embrace each other filially in 
its outside sports. It never occurs to him, that a wliite man 
could be degraded enough to b6ast in a public assembly, as was 
recently done in New York, of having actually slept with a 
negro. And his patriotic ire would crush with a blow the free 
negro who would dare, in his presence, as is done in the free 
Stales, to characterize the father of the country as a "scoundrel." 
No white man at the South serves another as a body servant, to 
clean his boots, wait on his table, and perform the menial ser- 
vices of his household. His blood revolts against this, and his 
necessities never drive liim to it. He is a companion and an 
equal. When in the employ of the slaveholder, or in intercourse 
with him, he enters his hall, and has a seat at his table. If a 
distinction exists, it is only that wliich education and refinement 
may give, and this is so courteously exhibited as scarcely to 
strike attention. The poor white laborer at the North is at the 
bottom of the social ladder, whilst his brother here has ascended 
several steps and can look down upon those who are beneath him, 
at an infinite remove. 

5. The non-slaveliolder hwws that as soon as his savings will 
admit, he can become a slaveholder, and thus relieve his wife from 
the necessities of the kitchen and the laundry, and his children from 
the labors of the field. This, with ordinary frugality, can, in gene- 
ral, be acc(^nplished in a {e\v years, and is a process continually 
going on. Perhaps twice the number of poor men at the South 
own a slave to what owned a slave ten years ago. The universal 
disposition is to purchase. It is the first use lor savings, and the 
negro purchased is the last possession to be parted with. If a 
woman, her children become heir-looms and make the nucleus of 
an estate. It is within my knowledge, that a plantation of fifty 
or sixty persons has been established, from the descendants of a 
single female, in the course of the lifetime of the original pur- 
chaser. 

6. The large slaveholders and proprietors of the Sozith begin life 
in great part as non-slaveholders. It is the nature of property to 
change hands. Luxury, liberality, extravagance, depreciated 
land, low prices, debt, distribution among children, are continu- 
ally breaking up estates. All over the new States of the South- 
west enormous estates are in the hands of men who began life as 
overseers or city clerks, traders or merchants. Often the ovi-r- 
seer marries the widow. Cheap lands, abundant harvest?, high 
prices, give the poor man soon a negro. His ten bales ol cotton 
bring him another, a second crop increases his purchabes, and so 
he goes on opening land and adding labor until in a Jew years his 



10 

draft for $30,000 upon his merchant becomes a very marketable 
commodiij". 

7. Hut should such fortune not be in reserve for the non-slave, 
holder, he will understand that by honesty and industry it may he 
realized to his children. More than one generation of pov^ertv in 
a family is scarcely to be expected at the South, and is against 
the general experience. It is more unusual here for poverty than 
wealili to be preserved through several generations in the same 
family. 

8. The sons of the non-slaveholder are and have ahvays been 
amona the leading and ruling spirits of the South; in industry as 
well as in politics. Every man's experience in hisovvn neighbor- 
hood will evince this. He has but to task his memory. In this 
class are the McDuffies, Langdon Cheves, Andrew Jacksons, 
Henry Clay?, and Rusks, of the past; tlie Hamindnds, Yanceys, 
Orrs, Memmingers, Benjamins, Stephens, Soules, Browns of Mis- 
sissippi, Simms, Porters, Magraths, Aikens, Maunsel Whites, 
and an innumerable host of the present; and what is to be noted, 
these men have not been made demagogues for that reason, as in 
other quarters, but are among the most conservative among us. 
Nowhere else in the world have intelligence and virtue discon- 
nected from ancestral estates, the same opportunities for advance- 
ment, and nowiiere else is their triumph more speedy and signal. 

9. If'ithout the institution of slavery, the great staple products of 
the South would cease to be grown, and the immense annual results, 
which are distributed among every class of the community, and 
which give life to every branch of industry, ivould cease. The 
world lurnishes no instances of these products being grown upon 
a large scale by iVee labor. The English now acknowledge their 
failure in the East Indies. Brazil, whose slave population nearly 
equals our own, is the only South American State which has pros- 
pered. Cuba, by her slave labor, showers wealth upon old Spain, 
whilst the British West India Colonies have now ceased to be a 
source of revenue, and from opulence have been, by emancipation, 
reduced to beggary. St. Domingo shared the same fate, and the 
poor whites have been massacred equally with the rich. 



EXPORTS. 

1789. 18(30. 

Hayti, §27,829,000 $5 to 6,000,000 

Sugar is no longer exported, and the quantity of Coffee scarcely 
exceeds one-third, and of Cotton one-tenth, of the exports of 1789. 
This I give upon Northern authority. 

Jamaica. 180;9. 1857. 

Sugar 150,352 hhds. 30,459 hhds. 

Rum 93,950 " 15,991 " 

Coffee 24,137,393 lbs. 7,095,(323 lbs. 



11 

Tlie value of llie present slave produ'-tion of the Soulli is ihtis 
given : 

United States Exports for 1859. 

Of Southern Origin— 1859. 

Collon '.'.'.'...'.: $l(i 1,434,923 

Tobacco 21,074,038 

Rice 2,207,048 

Naval Stores 3,094,474 

Sujrar 19(5,735 

Molasses 75,099 

Hemp 9,227 

Total 188,093,496 

Other from South 8,IOs,032 

Cotton Manufactures 4,989,733 

Total fiom South 198,389,351 

From the North 78,217,202 

Total Merchandise 278,392,080 

Specie 5 7,502,305 

To the Southern credit, however, must be given : 
60 per.cent. of the cotton manufactured, beinir, for raw 

^laterials S3,069,106 

Breadstufls (the North having received from the 

South a value as large in these as the whole foreign 

export) 40,047,000 

43,716,106 
Add 198,389,351 

Southern 242,105,457 

Northern contributions 34,501,008 

10. Jf (mancipation be. brought about as will nndouhtedly be the 
cxisc, unless the encrouchincnts of the fanatical majorities of the 
North are resisted now the slaveholders, in the main, will escape 
the degrading equality which mast result, by emigration, for ichich 
they u'oald have the means, by disposing of their personal chattels : 
whilst the non-slaveholders, without these resources, would be coni- 
nclied to remain and endure the deyradation. Tliis is a startling 
consideration. In Northern cop.imunities, where the free negro 
IS one in a liundred of the total population, he is recognized and 
tcknowlcdgcd often as a pest, and in many cases even his pres- 
ence is prohibited by law. Wliat would lie the case in many of 
our Slates, where every other inhabilanl is a negro, or in many of 
our communities, as lor example the parishes around and about 



12 

Charleston, and in the vicinity of New Orleans where there are 
from twenty to one hundred negroes to each white inhabitant? 
Low as would this class of people sink by emancipation in idle- 
ness, superstition and vice, the white man compelled to live 
among them, would by the power exerted over him, sink ever* 
lower, unless as is to be supposed he would prefer to suffer death 
instead. 

In conclusion, my dear sir, I must apologize to the non-slave- 
holders of the South, of which class, I was myself until very 
recently a member, for having deigned to notice at all the infa- 
mous libels which the common enemies of the South have circu- 
lated against them, and'which our every-day experience refutes; 
but the occasion seemed a fitting one to place them truly and 
rightly before the world. This I have endeavored faithfully to 
do. 'I'hey fully understand the momentous questions which now 
agitate the land in all their relations. They perceive the inevita- 
ble drift of Northern aggression, and know that if necessity impel 
to it, as I verily believe it does at this moment, the establishment 
of a Southern confederation will be a sure refuge from the storm. 
In such a confederation our rights and possessions would be secure, 
and the wealth being retained at home, to build up our towns and 
cities, to extend our railroads, and increase our shipping, which now 
goes in tariffs or other involuntary or voluntary tributes,'^ to other 
sections; opulence would be diffused throughout all classes, and we 
should become the freest, the happiest and the most prosperous and 
powerful nation upon earth. ^ 

Your obedient servant, 

J. D. B. DeBOW. 

Robert N. Gourdin, Esq., Charleston, S. C. 



* The annual drain in profits which is going on from the South to the North is 
thus set down by Mr. Keltcli, of New York: 

Bounties to fisheries, per annum $l,r)00,000 

Cu.vtoiii^. per annum, disbursed at the North 40,000.000 

Proiits of manufacturers 30,000.000 

ProHts of importers 16 000,000 

Profits ol .-hipping, imports and exports 40,000,000 

Profits of travellers (30,000,000 

Profits of teachers and others at the South, sent North 5,000,000 

Profits of agents, brokers, commis.>ions, etc 10,000.000 

Profits of capital drawn from the South 30,000,000 

Total from these sources $231,500,000 

This, from the beginning of the Government, making nil proper deduction 
from year to year, has given to the North over $2,500,000,000 of Southern 
■wealth. Are her accumulations, then, surprising, and can one be surprised if 
accumulation should appear to be less in the South ! 



14 



The " 1860 Association" commends tl)e perusal of tlie follow 
ing extract from a communication to the Boston Courier of 8th 
December, 1860, signed " Langdon." Emanating from a North- 
ern source, it possesses peculiar interest. 



HAS THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO COERCE A STATE ? 

To consider this question, a distinction must first be drawn between tlie rig-ht 
of war and the exercise of a conslilutionul Ainclion of the g:overninent on itself, 
in a constitutional way. The right of war exists only ;<frainst other K'overn- 
inents — and l)y tiie law of nations, it is immaterial whether these are usurp- 
ing' or legitimate governments. It siiflices that each parly has an actnal posses- 
sion or government, a control de facto over some territory or people which it 
enjoys, disconnected with, or by dispossessing the other's government. The 
writers on public law agree that a declaration ol war necessarily admits that 
the parly declared against is an actual government — even though its Icjiiimacy 
as a government may be the very point in dispute; and because it is. in fact, a 
government, other nations who have treaties of anilly and peace with the one. 
may enter into like treaties with the other, and recognize the government fie 
facto without impairing their neutrality or violating their obligations of amity 
and peace to those who claim legitimate authority over the government //r facto. 
It is not from the length of time that the government r/p facto has existed, but 
from the fact that the opposing government claiming to be legitimate, cannot 
control the other by civil means, and has not an actual military possession and 
control over it — that other nations are jusiilied in treaiingit as a government 
and entering into alliances with it. Tlitis. in our own War of Independence, 
after the declaration, Spain, Holland, and France, aclcnowledged the independ- 
ence of the Colonies, and formed treaties, without those acts violating their 
existing treaties with England. 

If, then, the secession of a State from this Union were followed by a declara- 
tion of war against her by the United States, such declaration would open to 
foreign nations the right to make alliances and treaties with her, commercial 
and otherwise, without thereby violating their treaties with the United States ; 
and all Enr.ipe, if their interests or sympathies led them in that direction, would 
be morally free to aid and help her in sustaining her act of secession. 

Attempts to coerce by war. then, would tend, by relieving foreign nations from 
the obligation of non-interference in domesPic questions, to conlirm secession, 
and to expose what ought to be a purely domestic question of coiistilutional 
constr\iction to the complications and embarrassments which rival powers could 
easily create, without endangering existing treaties. It would be the most 
effectual me-ans of removins' all the obligations of a State, and enabling her to 
resist any return to them. No one could be so foolish as to desire to submit the 
construclion of the Constitution of this Union to the inierference of ibrcign and 
hostile nations. It would surely bring down on this Union the calamity of dis- 
union, and in itself be unconstitutional. The construclion of the Constitution is 
domestic to the States of the Union, and should be adjusted through their 
domestic machinery, without exposinu: these Slates, by the imprudence of hos- 
tilities, to that foreign interference v^•hicll the Union was created lo avoid. 

Half the strength of these Colonies in the Revolution was derived from for- 
eign interference, and had England, by avoiding force, kept the question of tax- 
ation purely domestic, she might have preserved, instead of losiiisr, her connex- 
ion with her Colonies, and been spared the hatred that has survived the hostili- 
ties that gave it birth by more than eiiility years. It was madness in lier so to 
act as to let Ln the rival and jealous powers of Europe to give aid and comfort 
to the weaker side. Let such madness be avoided by us. 



14 

The free people of the thirty-lhree States of this Unfon boast that their obedi 
eiice is paid to the power of the laws they make, and not to the persons who 
are enlrnsied with the duty of executing them; that resisianee to tyrants is 
obedience to God. 

We may as well commence this examination by the proposition — That if a 
secedui!^ ^late cainiot he coeiccd hji ihe crenercil govKnimeiit i"iti'iuiil viuhilnig the 
Couxlitiitiuti and the lawx. then she cainiot he coerced at all. Tliis remits lis to two 
enquiries: What is the offence aijairst the Constitution by a State when she se- 
cedes? and, What Constitutional mode and means of punishment or prevenlio'u 
by the frencrnl government exist ? Ii is not our purpose to draw the linel)etween 
secession and revolution, as abstract ideas ; we are content lo examine a single 
case, which is staled thus : The peo|ile of a sovereign Stale in Conveiilion secede 
from the Union by repealing the ratilication she gave lo the Constitution of that 
Union of 178S, What is the oflence? and what the means of prevention or pun- 
ishment ■? 

We admit that while she remains in the Union there are many means pointed 
Gilt by ihe Consiiiiftion to compel her citizens to obedience to the law. The Con- 
stitution was binding upon her citizens, because the Stale in her sovereignty 
silting in Convention adopted it. or to use the better expression, ratiiied it. The 
Constitution was a mere project or speculation of a Convention of philosophers 
when it came lothe Stale Convention — it depended on the jieople of each Stat« 
in its Slate Convention for the power to become ii law; and because Slates 
were soveieign and did ratify it, then-fore it became part and parcel of the Slate 
Constitutions, of equal force and obligation with the other orffanic acts of the 
people of the Slates in their sovereignty, providing for a government for Ihe 
Stale. It hns the like force on the sovereign people of a State with their Consti- 
tntioii, and no more, no less, in this, that it purports to represent the will of the 
State, and is law so long as it has the solemn consent of the people of the Stale, 
acting in their sovereignty. By a Constitution, the people of a Slate delegate the 
power of representing their sovereij^nty ; but ihev do not renounce the sovereign- 
ty or iraiisl'cr it. A Constilulion makes agents to exercise powers of govern- 
ment, and limits and dehnes the spheres and powers of these agents, tlie serv- 
ants ol the people. It does not transfer the sovereignly from the people to their 
agents, making the agent lo be sovereign, and the former sovereisrn lo be the 
subject. On the contrary, every constitutional government announces lliat all 
powers are derived from the will of the people, and all powers not granted by the 
people are reserved. The agent cannot have more powers tlian the principal. 
The creature cannot be jrreater than the creator. Let us look at the ratifying 
part of the Constilulion of the United States. It was proposed that when nine 
Stales should agree thai this instrument should bo part of their constitution, or 
organic law; then this general agent should be organized and fo into force. The 
Congress of the old confederation, whom this new plan proposed to supplant, 
were friendly to the submission of the new plan ; but mark the logic, — the plan 
provided for the extinction of the old confederation by secession. The Congress 
favored it. and the Conventions of the Stales were called lo consider the seces- 
sion from the Confederation and the adoption of the new constitution. Nine 
States peacefully seceded in 17S7»aiid 175S. Two States — Rhoile Jsland and 
North Carolina — lingered a year and a half before they joined the new Confed- 
eration: North Carolina not joining until satislactorv amendmenls were made to 
the Consiiiiiiion, and Rhode Island joining ii|)on conditions. 

Notwithstanding the 12th article of confederation says, ihe articles shall be 
inviolably preserved and the Union be perpetual, and no alteration shall be here- 
after iiiiule unless it be continued by the Legislature ofevery State, yet tliere has 
never been a question that the Stales could not rightfully secede (rom the old 
Confederation, although ils articles of constitution were entitled "articles of con- 
federation and perpetual union," and in the new-Constitution as amended, the 
words, reserving to the Slates all powers not granted, are as clear as in the Ar- 
ticles of Confederation (see Art. 1(1) : '• The powers not delegated lo the United 
States by the Conslilulion, nor prohibited by it lo the Stales, are reserved to the 
States respt-clively, or to the people." It follows, then, that if secession was no 
oflence in 17SS against the old (confederation, unless words granting away the 
right lo secede are found in the new Constitution, or words prohibit inir secession 
to the Slates, then the ritfhl is reserved intact by ihe several States. We lind no 
such grant nor such prohibition. The rinlil of secession remains a purl of Ihe 
sovereignty of the respective Stales, just as perfectly as when they last exercised 



15 



■Vit in 1788-9 in order to adopt this present Constitution. It is nowhere mnde an 
''^oH'ence iijriiinst the new goveriinient for the State lo resume its delcfriiled puwers. 
<? Whilst she is in tiie Union the delegation ot" powers is good against lier, because 
"^ the theory otllie Union is the (lelegatiii^c the same power> hy each Sialelo theone 
C,^ general agent. It is iheeqnaliiy of rights and equality of oiiligalions that makes 
the base and substance of the Union — and the Act of each Stale in her sover- 
•■.eighty makes the Supreme Court of ihe U^niled Stales the ludge of all questions 
*■' arising under that grant of jiowers, but not on other sul)jects. Finding, then, 
neither grant by the Slates, nor prohibition lo them, of their sovereitin power to 
secede, and having shown that when t'alled on to ratify this Convention they 
were asked to do it l)y the act of secession from the existing one — it may well be 
deemed, this power reniains in the people of the State, unless we find some neces- 
sary implication of an inconsi.-tent nature arising elsewhere in the Constitution: 
such as a grant of power to coerce a Slate when negligent of her oblii:alions un- 
der the Constitution. Is there any such grant ? None appears — powers ovpr 
individinils appear. The judges of a State are commanded to obedience to the 
decisions of Ihe Supreme Court, but there are no words commanding the legisla- 
tures of the several States. Those hoi. ling the executive power of the States in 
the Union may. |ierhaps, be reached directly through the juiliciary as individuals, 
(as Congress has attempted in the la.-t Consular act on the subject ol' granting- 
passports) but no implication as to the States in their sovereignly is lo be discov- 
ered. Congress, even, is only authorized to make laws for executins' the powers 
granted to itself and those vested in the Government by this Constitniion. or in 
any department or olllcer thereof This subject may be still more conclusively 
set at rest by referring to the joitrnals of the Convention that formed the Consti- 
tution. 

We find there that Mr. Edmund Ran(lol|)h"s programme, included a power to 
coerce Stat-;s who were negligent of their duties or engagements, but that the 
Convention steadfastly resisteil and rejected the graiitintr of such a power lo 
the General Government. It was not incorporated in the Constitniion when sub- 
mitted to the States for their approval. This is not all. So jealous were the 
several States, lest this power afterwards might be assumed by construction, that 
only six States ratified the Constitution unconditionally. Six other States 
attached conditions lo iheir raiilicatlon, either directly as conditions, or else by 
declaring the construction of the Constitniion on which they ratilied it, and in- 
sisting that this construction should be made more clear by amendmeni.s and 
ex[ilieii declarations. One State. North Carolina, refused to give even a condi- 
tional ratiticaiion, before the amendments were made. The leadinsr condition of 
consirnciion thus made imperative by the concordant action of the States form- 
ing the Union, was immediately afterwards substantially adopted as an amend- 
ment, being art;cle 10th: ''that the powers not delegated lo the United Slates by 
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the Slates 
respectively or to the people." The Stales who insisted on thus "making assur- 
ance doubly sure,'" with regard to the limits of the delegation of powers, were 
South (,'arolina. New York, Viririiiia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode 
Island, with whom North Carolina stood. (Vide Ellioll's Debates on the Federal 
Constitution. Vol. 4. Katiticalion of the Stales.) The power lo coerce cannot 
then be derived from any just implication, and was refused to be incorporated 
originally in the Constitution. The Slates who formed this Union stood after it 
was, both by their condilional raliiication and by the amendment article 10, 
adopted and put into existence as a general governmerl. exactly as they stood in 
relation to the old confederation, when they declared. July fiih, 17*8. that their 
style sluiuld be the United Stales of America, and tliat '• Eacii Stale retains its 
sovereignly, freedom, independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, 
which is not by this conlederaiion expressly delegated lo the United Slates." so 
far as theii reserved rights were concerned. Coming, then, to a closer considera- 
tion of the objects of the'Union of these United Slates, and of the delegation ol 
powers lo eflect those objects, we find that the recitals of the objects of the "per- 
petual union" establislied in 1777, coincide i)erleclly with the objects of the ''more 
perfect union" commenced in 17>>7, so far as each jirovides for the miilual and 
general welfire, common defence and security of their liberties. In llie Consti- 
tniion, we find "lo establish justice and insure domestic tranquility," added to the 
prior objects. It does not appear from the avowed objects of Ihe Union of the 
Stales, any more than from the grants of powers lo the General Government, or 
from the prohibition to the Slates to exercise certain acts of sovereign power 



16 

whilst in the UnTon, that a prohibition of the authority to secede from the Union, 
or the power to coerce a Slate, were either of them included in the articles of 
the Conslitulion, or that any State has ever ratified to the United Stales these 
parts of her sovereign powers, or been even asiied to separate them from her 
sovereignty. And when we contemplate that the framers of liie Constitution 
proposed the peaceful secession of nine Stales from the old Confederation to the 
new one, as tlie only means of starting or instituting this present general gov-, 
eminent, how can it be imagined that they looked with such horror on secession 
by act of the peo|)le, in State sovereignty, as to mark with eternal future re))ro- 
bation, the act they were then inviting the Slates to lake? 

The people of one State surrendered no part of their sovereignty over their 
own Stale to other States. Whilst in the Union, the Constitution is iheir law, 
because it is their act. The general government has no sovereignly over any 
State of this Union. It is the agent of the States, having several powers from 
each; it can touch no subject not included in the powers granted to il by the 
States. We have seen that neither the |)retence of coercion nor the pretence 
of secession being prohibited to a State is supported by the record. The gene- 
ral government has no power to act in a case of secession. It concerns the 
Stales, in their sovereignly, and is beyond the limited sphere of the general 
government. Whom, then, does secession concern ? And is there any remedy 
or retribution? We answer that it concerns the oilier States, in that |)ortion of 
their sovereignty not delegated to the general government, nor even to the 
State legislatures. It concerns the sovereign people of each State in this 
Union, and them only. Congress has no powers to represent them. The people 
of the sovereign States have delegated no powei^s to any agent, State or general, 
to represent ihem. In their conventions alone can Ihey meet this issue, by 
either delegating powers to some agent or agencies equal to the. emergency ; or 
consider what other appropriate remedies, if any, are necessary. To tiie ques- 
tion, is there any relriliution lor secession? we say: not under the Constitution. 
But outside of the Constitution, is retribulion to be sought? If tlie Stales feel 
justly offended because the seceding State has witiidrawn from their alliance, 
they can treat her as a hostile neighbor, a nation with whom they have cause of 
war, and may follow her with all the means that the law of nations points out in 
cases of public war. ll' they conquer her, they may make her a territory, or 
annex her as territory to some Stale of the Union. But from the moment of 
secession she has no rights in the sisterhood of Slates — no protection in the 
Constitution. She is alien p.-m1 stranger. Whether ihe States will resort to the 
harsh meanv of war, and rush into the discords of social evils sure to follow in 
the footsteps of such a war, or whether recognizing some justice in their 
grievances, peaceful means to mitigate by treaties the evils of disunion, or else 
by timely additional guarantees in the Constitution, to give full assurance of 
the equality and protection demanded in the Union, are questions of future 
policy for discussion in each State. 



THE CHARACTER A:NtD INFLUENCE 

OF 

ABOLITIONISM. 



EXTRACTS FROM A SERMON PREACHED BY REV. HENRY J. VAN DYKE. 



The First Presbyterian church, corner of Remsen and Clinton 
streets, Brooklyn, was recently densely crowded with a highly in- 
telligent congregation, who listened with marked interest and atten- 
tion to a discourse from their pastor, Rev. Henry J. Van Dyke, on the 
Character and Influence of Abolitionism from a Scriptural point of 
view. In his opening supplication, the reverend gentleman prayed 
that Providence would bless our Southern brethren and restrain the 
passion of the evil among them ; that the master might be made 
Christ's servant, and the servaoit Christ's freeman, and so both sit 
together, united in Christian love, in that church founded by Christ 
and His Apostles, in which there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor 
female, bond nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus. He also 
prayed that C4od would bless the people of the Northern States, 
restrain the violence of fanatical men, provide for those who, by the 
agitation of the times, have been thrown out of employment, keep 
the speaker himself from teaching anything which w^as not in accord- 
ance with the Divine will, and disabuse the minds of his hearers of 
all prejudice and passion, so that they might be willing to be con- 
vinced of the truth. 

His text was chosen from St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy, sixth 
chapter, from the first to the fifth verse, inclusive : 

1. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own 
masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine 
be not blasphemed. 

2 "And they that have believing masters let them not despise 
them, because they are brethren • but rather do them service, because 
they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things 
teach and exhort. 

3. " If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome 
2 



18 

words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine 
which is according to godliness ; 

4. " He is proud, knowing nothing but doting about questions and 
strife of words whereof comelh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 

5. "Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of 
the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw 
thyself." 

I propose, he said, to discuss the character and influence of aboli- 
tionism. With- this view, I have selected a text from the Bible, and 
purpose to adhere to the letter and spirit of its teaching. We 
acknowledge in this place but one standard of morals, but one author- 
itative and infallible rule of faith and practice. For we are Christ- 
ians here; not Papists to bow down to the dictation of any man or 
church; not heathen philosophers, to grope our way by the feeble 
glimmerings of the light of nature; not modern infidels, to appeal 
from the written law of God to the corrupt and fickle tribunal af 
reason and humanity; but Christians, on whose banner is inscribed 
this sublime challenge — "To the law and to the testimony — if they 
speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in 
them." 

Let me direct your special attention to the laruguage of our text. 
There is no dispute among commentators, there is no room for dispute 
as to the meaning of the expression "servants under the yoke." 
Even Mr. Barnes, who is himself a distinguished abolitionist, and has 
done more perhaps, than any other man in this country to propagate 
abolition doctrines, admits that " the addition of the phrase 'under 
the yoke' " shows undoubtedly that it (i. e. the original word doulos) 
is to be understood here of slavery. Let me quote another testimony 
on this point from an eminent Scotch divine, I mean Dr. McK night, 
whose exposition of the epistle is a standard work in Great Britain 
and in this country, and whose associations must exempt him from 
all suspicion of pro-slavery prejudices. He introduces his exposition 
of this chapter with the following explanation : — "Because the law 
of Moses allowed no Israelite to be made a slave for life without his 
own consent, the Judaizing teachers, to allure slaves to their party, 
taught that under the gospel, likewise, involuntary slavery is unlawful. 
This doctrine the apostle condemned here, as in his other epistles, by 
enjoining Christian slaves to honor and obey their masters, whether 
they were believers or unbelievers, and by assuring Timothy that if 
any person taught otherwise, he opposed the wholesome precepts of 
Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the gospel, which in all points is 
conformable to godliness or sound morality, and was puffed up 
with pride, without possessing any true knowledge either of the 
Jewish or Christian revelation." Our learned Scotch friend then 
goes on to expound the passage in the following paraphrase, which 
we commend to the prayerful attention of all whom it may concern : 

"Let whatever Christian slaves are under the yoke of unbelievers 
pay their own masters all respect and obedience, that the character 
of God whom we worship may not be calumniated, and the doctrine 
of the gospel may not be evil spoken of as tending to destroy the 



political n\,nts of mankihJ. And those Christian slaves who have 
believing masters, let them not despise them, fancying that they are 
their equals because they are their brethren in Christ; for, though 
all Christians are equal as to religious privileges, slaves are inferior 
to their masters in station. Wherefore, let them serve their masters 
more' diligently, because they who enjoy the benefit of their service, 
are believers and beloved of God. 'These things teach, and exhort 
the brethren to practice them.' If any one teach differently by 
affirming that, under the gospel, slaves are not bound to serve their 
masters, but ought to be made free, and does not consent to the whole- 
some commandments which are our Lord Jesus Christ's, and to the 
doctrine of the gospel which in all points is conformable to true 
morality, he is puffed up with pride, and knoweth nothing either of 
the Jewish or the Christian revelations, though he pretends to have 
great knowledge of both. But is distempered in his mind about idle 
questions and debate of words which afford no foundation for such 
a doctrine, but are the source of envy, contention, evil speaking, un- 
just suspicion that the truth is not sincerely maintained, keen disput- 
ings carried on contrary to conscience by men wholly corrupted in 
iheir minds and destitute of the true doctrine of the gospel, who 
reckon whatever produces most money is the best religion ; from all 
such impious teachers withdraw thyself, and do not dispute with 
them." 

The text, as thus expounded by an American abolitionist and a 
Scotch divine, (whose testimony need not be confirmed by quotations 
from all the other commentators,) is a prophec}' written for these 
day.«, and wonderfully applicable to our present circumstances. It 
gives us a life-like picture of abolitionism in its principles, its spirit 
and its practice, and furnishes us plain instruction in regard to our 
duty in the premises. Before entering upon the discussion of the 
doctrine, let us define the terms employed. By abolitionism we 
mean tlie principles and measures of abolitionists. And what is an 
abolitionist? He is one who believes that slaveholding is sin, and 
ought therefore to be abolished. This is the fundamental, the char- 
acteristic, the essential principle of abolitionism — that slaveholding 
is sin — that holding men in involuntary servitude is an infrincjement 
upon the rights of man, a lieinous crime in the sight of God. A 
man may believe on political or commercial grounds that slavery is 
an undesirable system, and tliat slave labor is not the most profita- 
ble ; he may have various views as to the rights of slaveholders 
under the constitution of the country; lie may think this or that law 
upon the statute books of Southern States, is wrong; but this does 
not constitute him an abolitionist, unless he believes that slavehold- 
ing is morally wrong. The alleged sinfulness of slaveholding, as it 
is the characteristic doctrine, so it is the strength of abolitionism in 
all its ramifisd and various forms. It is by this doctrine that it lays 
liold upon the hearts and consciences of men, that it comes as a 
disturbing force into our ecclesiastical and civil institutions, and by 
exciting religious animosity, (which all history proves to be the 
strongest of human passions,) imparls a peculiar intensity to every 



20 

contest into which it enters. And you will perceive it is just here- 
that abolitionism presents a proper subject for discussion in the pul- 
pit—for it is one great purpose of the Bible, and therefore one great 
duty of God's ministers in its exposition, to show what is sin and 
what is not. Those who hold the doctrine that slaveholding is sin,, 
and ought therefore to be abolished, differ very much in the extent to 
which they reduce their theoi-y to practice. In some this faith is 
almost without works. They content themselves Aviih only voting in 
such a way as in their judgment will best promote the ultimate 
triumph of their views. Others stand off at what they suppose a 
safe distance, as Shimei did when he stood on an opposite hill to 
curse King David, and rebuke the sin and denounce divine judg- 
ments upon the sinner. Others more practical, if not more prudent, 
go into the very midst of the alleged wickedness and teach' "ser- 
vants under the yoke" that they ought not to count their own masters- 
worthy of all honor — that liberty is their inalienable right — whicb 
they should maintain, if necessary, even by the shedding of blood. 
Now, it is not for me to decide who of all these are the truest to their 
own principles. It is not for me to decide whether the man who 
preaches this doctrine in brave words, amid applauding multitudes 
in the city of Brooklyn, or the one who, in the stillness of the night, 
and in the face of the law's terrors, goes to practice the preaching at 
Harper's Ferry, is the most consistent abolitionist and the most 
heroic man. It is not for me to decide which is the most important 
part of a tree; and if the tree be poisonous, which is the most inju- 
rious, the root, or the branches, or the fruit ? But I am here to-night,, 
in God's name, and by His help, to show that this tree of abolition- 
ism is evil and only evil, root and branch, flower and leaf and fruit; 
that it springs from and is nourished by an utter rejection of the 
Scriptures; that it produces no real benefit to the enslaved, and is 
the fruitful source of division, and strife, and infidelity in both, 
church and State. I have four distinct propositions on the subject 
to maintain — four theses to nail up and defend: — 

I. Abolitionism has no foundation in the Scriptures. 

II. Its principles have been promulgated chiefly by misrepresenta- 
tion and abuse. 

III. It leads, in multitudes of cases, ^nd by a logical process, to> 
utter infidelity. 

IV. It is the chief cause of the strife that agitates and the danger 
that threatens our country. 



I. ABOLITIONISM HAS NO FOUNDATION IN SCRIPTURE. 

Passing by the records of the patriarchial age, and waving the 
question as to those servants in Abraham's family, who, in the simple 
but expressive language of Scripture, "were bought with his money,''" 
let us come at once to the tribunal of that law which God promulgated 
amid the solemnities of Sinai. What said the law and the testimony 
to that peculiar people over whom God ruled, and for whose institu- 



21 

tions He has assumed the responsibility? The answer is in the 25lh 
(chapter of Leviticus, in these words : 

" And if thy brother lliat dweUeth by thee ,be waxen poor, and be 
^sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant; 
but as a liired servant and a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall 
serve tliee unto the year of jubilee^ and then shall he depart from thee, 
both he and his children with him." 

So far, you will observe, the law refers to the children of Israel, 
who, by reason of poverty, were reduced to servitude. It was their 
right to be free at the year of jubilee, unless they chose to remain in 
perpetual bondage, for vvhicli case provision is made in other and dis- 
tinct enaciments. But not so with slaves of foreign birth. There 
■was no year of jubilee provided for them. For what says the law? 
Read the 44, 4G verses of the same chapter : 

" Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, 
shall be of the heathen that are round about you. Of them shall ye 
buy. bondmen and bondmaids. Morever, of the children of the stran- 
gers that do sojourn among you — of them shall ye buy and of their 
families that are with you, which they beget in your land; and they 
shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as inheritance for 
your children after you to inherit them as a possession; they shall be 
your bondmen forever." 

There it is, plainly written in the divine law. No legislative enact- 
ment; no statute framed by legal skill was ever more explicit and 
incapable of perversion. When the abolitionist tells me that slave- 
holding is sin, in the simplicity of my faith in the Holy Scriptures, I 
point hiin to this sacred record, and tell him in all candor, as my text 
does, that his teaching blasphemes the name of God and His doctrine. 
When he begins to doat about questions and strifes of words, appeal- 
ing to the Declaration of Independence, and asserting that the idea of 
property in men is an enormity and a crime, I still hold him to the 
record, saying, " Ye sliali take him as an inheritance for your chil- 
dren after you to inherit' them for a possession." When he waxes 
warm — as he always does if his opponent quote Scripture (which is 
the great test to try the spirits, whether they be of God — the very 
spear of Ithuriel, to reveal their, true-character) — when he gets angry, 
and begins to pour out his evil surmisings and abuse upon slavehold- 
ers — I obey tlie precept which says^ "from guch withdraw thyself," 
comforting myself with this thougliti-that the wisdom of God is wiser 
than men, and the kindness of God kinder than men. Philosophers 
may reason and reformers may rave till doomsday, they never can 
convince me that God, in the Levitical law, or in any other law, 
sanctioned sin; and, as I Icnow, from the plain passage I have quoted, 
and many more like it, that He did sanction slaveholding among His 
ancient people. I know, also, by the logic of that faith which, be- 
lieves the Bible to be His Word, that i^^llaveholding is not sin. There 
are men even among professing Christians, and not a few ministers 
of the Gospel, who answer this argument from the Old Testament 
Scriptures by a simple denial of their authority. They do not tell us 
how God could ever or anywhere countenance that which is morally 



22 

wrong, but tliey content themselves with saying that the Levitical law- 
is no rule of action for us, and they appeal from its decisions to what 
they consider the higher tribunal of the Gospel. Let us, therefore, 
join issue with them before the bar of the New Testament Scriptures. 
It is a historic truth, acknowledged on all hands, that at the advent of 
Jesus Christ, slavery existed all ove^r the civilized world, and was inti- 
mately interwoven with its social and civil institutions. In Judea, in 
Asia Minor, in Greece, in all the countries wliere the Saviour or his 
Apostles preached the Gospel, slaveholding was just as common as it 
is to-day in South Carolina. It is not alleged by any one, or at least 
by any one having- any pretensions to scholarship or candor, that the 
Roman laws regulating slavery were even as mild as the very worst 
statutes which have been passed upon the subject in modern times. 
It will not be denied by any honest and well-informed man, that 
modern civilization and the restraining influences of the Gospel have 
shed ameliorating influences upon the relation between master and 
slave, which was utterly unknown at the advent of Christianity. And 
how did Jesus and his Apostles treat this subject ? Masters and 
slaves met them at every step in their missionary work, and were 
even present in every audience to which they preached. The Roman 
law, which gave the full power of life and death into the master's 
hand, was familiar to them, and all the evils connected with the sys- 
tem surrounded them every day as obviously as the light of heaven; 
and yet it is a remarkable fact, which the AI)oIitionist does not, be- 
cause lie cannot, deny, that the New Testament is utterly silent in 
regard to the alleged sinfulness of slaveholding. In all the instruc- 
tions of the Saviour — in all the reported sermons of the inspired 
Apostles — in all the epistles they were moved by the Holy Spirit to 
write for the instruction of coming generations — there is not one dis- 
tinct and explicit denunciation of slaveholding, nor one precept re- 
(juiring the master to emancipate his slaves. Every tickriowledged 
sin is openly and repeatedly condemned, and m unmeasured terms. 
Drunkenness and adultery, theft and murder — all the moral wrong 
which ever have been known to afflict society, are forbidden by name; 
and yet, according to the teaching of Abolitionism, this greatest of all 
sins — this sum of all villanies- — is never spoken of except in respect- 
ful terms. How can this be accounted for? 

Let Dr. Wayland, wbose work on moral science is taught in many 
of our schools, answer this question ; and let parents, whose children 
are studying: that book, diligently consider his answer. 1 quote from 
Wayland's Moral Science, page 213: 

"The Gospel was designed not for one race or for one time, but for 
all races and for all times. , It looked not to the abolition of slavery 
for tliat age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence the im- 
portant object of its author was to gain for it a lodgment in every 
part of the known world, so tfeat, by its universal diff'usion among all 
classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and sub- 
due the evil passions of men. In this manner alone could its object 
— a universal moral revolution — have been accomplished. For if it 
had forbidden the evil, instead of subverting the principle; if it had 



23 

proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery and taught slaves to resist 
the oppression of tiieir masters, it would instantly have arrayed the 
two parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its 
announcement would have been the signal of servile war, and the 
very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst 
the agitation of universal bloodshed." 

We pause not now to comment upon the admitted fact that Jesus 
Christ and his Apostles pursued a course entirely different from that 
adopted by the abolitionists, including the learned author himself, 
nor to inquire whether the teaching of abolitionism is not as likely to 
produce strife and bloodshed in these days, as in the first ages of 
the church. What we now call attention to and protest against, is 
the imputation here cast upon Christ and his Apostles. Do you be- 
lieve the Saviour sought to insinuate his religion into the earth by 
concealing its real design, and preserving a profound silence in 
regard of one of the very worst sins it came to destroy ? Do you 
believe that when he healed the centurion's servant (whom every 
honest commentator admits to have been a slave), and pronounced that 
precious eulogy upon the master, "I have not seen so great faith in 
Israel," do you believe that Jesus suffered that man to live on in sin 
because he deprecated the consequences of preaching abolitionism ? 
When Paul stood upon iVIars' Hill, surrounded by ten thousand times 
as many slaveholders as there were idols in the city, do you believe 
he kept back any part of the requirements of the gospel because he 
was afraid of a tumult among the people ? We ask these abolition 
philosophers whether, as a matter of fact, idolatry and the vices con- 
nected with it were not even more intimately interwoven with the 
social and civil life of the Roman empire than slavery was? Did 
the Apostles abstain from preaching against idolatry ? Nay, who- 
does not know that by denouncing this sin, they brought down upon 
themselves the whole power of the Roman empire ? Nero covered 
the bodies of the Christian martyrs with pitch, and lighted up the 
city with their burning bodies, just because they would not withhold 
or compromise the truth in regard to the worship of idols. In the 
light of that fierce persecution, it is a profane trifling for Dr. Way 
land or any other man, to tell us that Jesus or Paul held back theii 
honest opinions of slavery for fear of "a servile war, in which the 
very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten." 
The name of the Christian religion is not so easily forgotten; nor 
are God's great purposes of redemption capable of being defeated by 
an honest declaration of his truth every where and at all times. And 
yet this philosophy, so dishonoring to Christ and his Apostles, is 
moulding the character of our young men and women. It comes 
into our schools, and mingles with the ver^ lifeblood of future ven- 
erations the sentiment that Christ and his Apostles held back the 
truth, and suffered sin to go unrebuked, for fear of the wrath of man. 
And all this to maintain, at all hazards, and in the face of the 
Saviour's example to the contrary, the unscriptural dogma that slave- 
holding is sin. But it must be observed in this connexion that the 
Apostles went much further than to abstain from preaching against 



24 

slaveholding. They admitted slaveholders to the communion of the 
church. In our text, masters are acknowledged as "brethren, faith- 
ful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." If the IN'ew Testament 
is to be received as a faithful history, no man was ever rejected by 
the apostolic church upon the ground that he owned slaves. If he 
abused his power as a master, if he availed himself of the authority 
conferred by the Roman law to commit adultery, or murder, or cruelty, 
he was rejected for these crimes, just as he would he rejected now 
for similar crimes from any Christian church in our Southern States. 
If parents abused or neglected their children, they were censured, 
not for having children, but for not treating them properly. And so 
with the slav'eholder. It was not the owning of slaves, but the maa-, 
ner in which he fulfilled the duties of his station, that made him a 
subject for church discipline. The mere fact that he was a slave- 
holder no more subjected him to censure than the mere fact that he 
was a father or a husband. It is upon the recognized lawfulness of 
the relation, that all the precepts regulating the reciprocal duties of 
that relation are based. 

These precepts are scattered all through the inspired epistles. 
There is not one command or exhortation to emancipate the slave. 
The Apostle well knew that for the present emancipation would be 
no real blessing to him. But the master is exhorted to be kind and 
considerate, and the slave to be obedient, that so they might preserve 
the unity of that church in which there is no distinction between 
Greek or Jew, male or female, bond or free. Oh, if ministers of the 
Gospel in this land or age had but followed Paul as he followed 
Christ, and, instead of hurling anathemas and exciting wrath against 
slaveholders, had sought only to bring both master and slave to the 
fountain of Emanuel's blood ; if the agencies of the blessed Gospel 
had only been suffered to work their way quietly, as the light and dew 
of the morning, into the structure of society, both North and South, 
how different would have been the position of our country this day 
before God ! How different would have been the privileges enjoyed 
by the poor black man's soul, which, in this bitter contest, has been 
too much neglected and despised. Then there would have been no 
need to have converted our churches into military barracks for collect- 
ing firearms to carry on war upon a distant frontier. No need for a 
sovereign' State to execute the fearful penalty of the law upon the 
invader for doing no more than honestly to carry out the teaching of 
abolition preachers, who bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be 
borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, while they touch them not 
with one of their fingers. No need for the widow and the orphan to 
weep in anguish of heart over those cold graves, for whose dishonor 
and desolation God will held the real authors responsible. No occa- 
sion or pretext for slaveholding States to pass such stringent laws for 
the punishment of the secret incendiary and the prevention of servile 
war. 

I shall not attempt to show what will be the condition of the Afri- 
can race in this country when the Gospel shall have brought all 
classes under its complete dominion. What civil and social relations 



35 

men will sustain in the times of millcnial glory I do not know. I 
cordially embrace tlie current opinion of our churcli that slavery is 
permitted and regulated by the divine law under both the Jewish and 
Christian dispensations, not as the final destiny of llie enslaved, but 
as an important and necessary process in their transition from hea- 
thenism to Christianity — a wheel in tlie great machinery of Provi- 
dence, by which the final redemption is to be accomplished. How- 
ever this may be-, one thing I know, and every abolitionist might 
know it if he would, that there are Christian families at the South in 
which a patriarchal fidelity and afl^ection subsist between the bond 
and the free, and where slaves are better fed and clothed and in- 
structed, and have a better opportunity for salvation than the majority 
of laboring people in the city of New York. If the tongue of abo- 
litionism had only kept silence these twenty years past, the number 
of such families would be tenfold as great. Fanaticism at the North 
is one chief stumbling block in the way of the Gospel at the South. 
This is one great grievance that presses to-day upon the hearts of our 
Christian brethren at the South. This, in a measure, explains why 
such men as Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina, and Dr. Palmer, of 
New Orleans — men whose genius and learning and piety would adorn 
any state or station — are willing to secede from the Union. They feel 
that the influence of the Christian ministry is hindered, and their 
power to do good to both master and slave crippled, by the constant 
agitations of abolitionism in our national councils, and the incessant 
turmoil excited by the unscriptural dogma that slaveholding is sin. 

11. — THE PRINCIPLES OF ABOLITIONISM HAVE EEEN PROrOGATED CHIEFLY 
BY MISREPRESENTATION AND ABUSE. 

Having no foundation in Scripture, it does not carry on its warfare 
by scripture weapons. Its prevailing spirit is fierce and proud, and 
its language is full of wrath and bitterness. Let me prove this by 
testimony from its own lips. I quote Dr. Channing, of Boston, whose 
name is a tower of strength to the abolition cause, and whose memory 
is their continual boast. In a work published in tlie year 1836, 1 find 
the following words : 

"The abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; nor is their wrong 
to be winked at because done fanatically or with good intentions ; for 
how much mischief may be wrought with good designs ! Thev have 
fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their 
object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, 
and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing and 
upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, so far as I have seen 
them, has oftbn been fierce, bitter and abusive. They have sent 
forth their orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound 
the alarm against slavery through the land, to gather together young 
and old, pupils from schools, females hardly arrived at years of dis- 
cretion, the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize 
these into associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhap- 



26 

pi'ly they preached their doctrine to the colored people and collected 
them into societies. To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute 
heart-rending descriptions of slavery were given in piercing tones of 
passion ; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and 
crime. The abolitionist, indeed, proposed to convert slaveholders'; 
and for this end he approached them with vituperation, and exhaust- 
ed on them the vocabulary of abuse. And he has reaped as he 
sowed." 

Such is the testimony of Dr. Channing, given in the year 1836. 
What would he have thought and said if he had lived until the year 
1860, and seen . this little stream, over whose infant violence he 
lamented, swelling into a torrent and flooding the land ? Abolition- 
ism is abusive in its persistent misrepresentation of the legal princi- 
ples involved in the relation between master and slave. They reiter- 
ate, in a thousand exciting forms, the assertion that the idea of 
property in man blots out his manhood and degrades him to the level 
of a brute or a stone. " Domestic slavery," says Dr. Wayland, in 
his work on Moral Science, '* supposes at best that the relation 
between master and slave is not that which exists between man and 
man, but is a modification at least of that which exists between man 
and the brutes." Do not these abolitionist philosophers know that 
according to the laws of every civilized country on earth a man has 
properly in his children and a woman has properly in her i)usband ? 
The statutes of the State of New York and of every other Northern 
State recognize and protect this property, and our courts of justice 
have repeatedly assessed its value. If a man is killed on a railroad, 
his wife may bring suit and recover damages for the pecuniary loss 
she has suffered. If one man entice away the daughter of another, 
and marry her while she is still under age, the father may bring a 
civil suit for damages for the loss of that child's services, and the 
pecuniary compensation is the only redress the law provides. Thus 
the common law of Christendom and the statutes of our own State 
recognize property in man. In what does that property consist ? 
Simply in such services as a man or a child may properly be required 
to render. This is all ihat the Levitical law, or any other law, means 
when it says, *' Your bondmen shall be your possession or property 
and an inheritance for your children." The property consists not in 
the right to treat the slave like a brute, but simply in a legal claim 
for such services as a man in that position may properly be required 
to render. And yet abolitionists, in the face of the divine law, per- 
sist in denouncing the very relation between master and slave, " as a 
modification, at least, of that which exists between man and the 
brutes." This, however, is not t'^ worst or most prevalent form 
which their abusive spirit assuni'j.s. Their mode of arguing the 
question of slaveholding, by a pietended appeal to facts, is a tissue 
of misrepresentation from beginning to end. Let me illustrate my 
meaning by a parallel case. Suppose 1 undertake to prove the wick- 
edness of marriage as it exists in the city of New York. In this 
discussion suppose the Bible is excluded, or at least that it is not 



27 

recognized as liaving exclusive jurisdiction in the decision of the- 
question. My first appeal is to the statute law ot the State. 

1 show there enactments wliicli nullify the law of God and make- 
divorce a marketable and cheap commodity. I collect the advertise- 
ments of } our daily papers, in wliich lawyers offer to procure the- 
legal separation of man and wife for a stipulated j)rice, to say noth- 
ing in tliis ^acred place of other advertisements which decency for- 
bids me to quote. Then I turn to the records of our criminal courts,, 
and find that every day some cruel liusband beats his wife, or some 
unnatural parent murders his child, or some discontented wife or hus- 
band seeks the dissolution of the marriage bond. In the next place,, 
1 turn to tlie orphan asylums and hospitals, and show there the mis- 
erable wrecks of domestic tyranny in wives deserted and children 
maimed by drunken parents. In the last place, I go through our 
streets and into our tenement houses, and count the thousands of 
ragged children, who, amid ignorance and filth, are training for the 
prison and gallows. Summing all tliese facts together, 1 put then)- 
forth as tlie fruits of marriage in the city of New York, and a proof 
that the relation itself is sinful. If I were a novelist, and liad writ- 
ten a book to illustrate this same doctrine, I would call this array of' 
facts a " Key." In this Key, I say nothing about the sweet charities, 
and affections that flourish in ten thousand homes, not a word about 
the multitude of loving kindnesses that cliaracterize the daily life or 
honest people, about the instruction and discipline that are trainings 
children at ten thousand firesides for usefulness here and glory here- 
after ; all this I ignore, and quote only tlie statute book, tiie news- 
papers, the records of criminal courts and the miseries of the abodes 
of poverty. Noyv, vyhat have I done? I have not misstated or exag- 
gerated a single fact. And yet am I not a falsifier and slanderer of 
the deepest dye ! Is there a virtuous woman or an honest man in 
this city, Avhose cheeks would not burn with indignation at my one-, 
sided and injurious statements? Now, this is just what abolitionismi 
has done in regard to slaveholding. It has undertaken to illustrate- 
its cardinal doctrine in works of fiction, and tlien, to sustain thfr 
creation of its fancy, has attempted to underpin it with an accumula- 
tion of facts. These facts are collected in precisely the way I have- 
described. The statute books of slaveholding States are searched, 
and every wrong enactment collated, newspaper reports of cruelty 
and crime on the part of wicked masters are tieasured up and classi- 
fied, all the outrages tliat have been perpetrated " by lewd fellows of 
the baser sort," of whom there are plenty, both North and South, are 
eagerly seized and , recorded, and this mass of vileness and filth col- 
lected from the kennels and sewers of society is put forth as a faith- 
ful exhibition of slaveholding. Senators in the forum and ministers in. 
the pulpit, distil tlnVraw material into the more refined slander " that 
Southern society is essentially barbarous, and that slaveliolding had 
its origin in hell." Legislative bodies enact and re-enact statutes,, 
which declare tliat slaveholding is such an enormous crime, that if a 
Southern man, under the broad shield of the Constitution, and with, 



the decisions of the Supreme Court of the country in his hand, shall 
come within their jurisdiction, and set up a claim to a fugitive slave, 
he shall he punished with a fine of $2,000 and fifteen years' impris- 
onment. This method of argument has continued until multitudes 
of honest Christian people in this and other lands believ'6"l!hat siave- 
hdlding is the sin of sins, the sum of all villanies. ' Let me illustrate 
this by an incident in my own experience. A few years since I 
took from the centre table of a Christian family in Scotland, by 
whom I had been most kindly entertained, a book entitled, '-'Life and 
Manners in America." On the blank leaf was an inscriptioft, stating 
that the bo6k had been bestowed upon one of the children of the 
family as a reward of diligence in an institution of learning. The- 
frontispiece was a picture of a man of fierce countenalnce beating a 
naked woman. The contents of the book were professedly compiled 
from the testimony of Americans upon the subject of slavery. 1 dare 
not quote in this place the extracts which I made in my memoran- 
dum. It will be sufficient to say that the book asserts as undoubted 
facts that the banks of the Mississippi are studded with iron gallows 
for the punishment of slaves — that in the City of Charleston the 
bloody block on which masters cut ofT the hands of disobedient ser-' 
vants may be seen in the public squares, and that sins against chas- 
tity are cornmon and unrebuked in professedly Christian families. 

Now, in my heart, I did not feel angry at the author of that book, 
Yior at the school teacher who bestowed it upon his scholar, for in 
Christian charity I gave them credit for honesty in the case; but 
standing there a stranger among the martyr memories of that glorious 
land to which my heart had so often made its pilgrimage, I did feel 
that you and I, and every man in America was- wronged by the 
revilers of their native land, who teach foreigners that hanging and 
cutting off hands, and beating women, are the characteristics of our 
life and manners. 

I trust and pray, and call upon you to unite with me in the suppli- 
cation, that God would give aboliti'onists repentance and a better 
mind, so that in time to come they may ait least propagate their prin- 
ciples in decent and respectful language. ■ 



HI.— ABOLITIONISM LEADS, IN MULTITUDES OF CASKS, AND BY A LOGICAL 
PROCESS, TO UTTER INFIDELITY. 

On this point, I would not, and will not, be misunderstood. I do 
"not say that abolitionism is infidelity. I speak only of the tenden-i 
cies of the system as indicated in its avowed principles and demon- 
strated in its practical fruits. * 

It does not try slavery by the Bible ; but as one of its leading 
advocates has recently declared, it tries the Bible by the principles 
of freedom. It insists that the word of God must be made to support 
certain human opinions or forfeit all claims upon our faith. That I 
may not be suspected of exaggeration on this point, let me quote from 



the recent work of Mr. Barno? a passage which may well arrest the 
attpntion of all thinking men : 

,. f^Tliere are great principles in our nature, as God has made us^. 
■yvjucl^ can never be set aside by any authority of a. professed revela- 
tion.; U a book, claiming to be a revelation from God, by any fair 
.interpret£^tion defended slaver}', or placed it on, the same basis as the 
.feJation of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, 
such a book would not, and could not, be received by the mass qf 
mankind as a Divine revelation." j 

This .assumption, that men axe capable of judging beforehand what 
is tpbe expected in a Divine revelation,, is the cockatrice's egg, from 
.which, in aJl ages, heresies have been hatched. This is the spider's 
web which men have spun out of their own brains, and, clinging to 
.jtv'hich, they have attempted to swing over the yawning abyss of infi- 
.delJty. Alas, how many have fallen in and been' dashed to pieces ! 
^When a man sets up the great principles of our nature (by which he 
^Iways means his own preconceived opinions) as tlie supreme tri- 
bunal before which even the law of God must be tried — when a man 
,says " the Bible must teach abolitionisrn or I will not receive it," he 
has already cut loose fronj th^ sheet anchor of faith. True belief 
says, '' Speak, Lord, thy servant waits to hear." Abolitionism says, 
//Speak, Lord, but speak in accordance with the principles of human 
nature, or they cannot be received by the great mass of mankind as a 
Divine revelation." 

The fruit of such principles is just what we might expect. Wher- 
ever the seed of abolitionism has been sown broadcast, a plentiful 
.crop of infidelity has sprung up. In the communities where anti- 
slavery excitement has been most prevalent, the power of the Gospel 
has invariably declined ; and when the tide of .fanaticism begins to 
subside, the wrecks of church order and of Cbristian character have 
been scattered on the shore. I mean no disrespect to New Eng- 
land — to the good men who there stand by the ancient landmarks and 
contend earnestly for the truth — nor to the illustrious dead whose 
;praise is m all the churches; but who does not know that the States 
in which abolitionism has achieved its most signal triumphs are at 
the same time the great strongholds of infidelity in the land ? I have 
often thought that if some of those old pilgrim fathers could come 
back, in the spirit and power of Elias, to attend a grand celebration 
at Plymouth rock, they might well preach on this text : " If ye were 
Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." The 
effect of abolitionism upon individuals is no less striking and mourn- 
ful than its influence upon communities. It is a remarkable and 
instructive fact, and one at which Christian men would do well to 
pause and consider, that in this country all ihe prominent leaders of 
aljolitionism, outside of the ministry, hafe become avowed infidels; 
and that all our notorious abolition preachers have renounced the. 
great doctrines of grace as they are taught in the standards of the 
reformed churches — have resorted to the most violent process of 
interpretation to avoid the obvious meaning of plain Scriptural texts^ 
and ascribed to the apostles of Christ principles from which piety 



30 

and moral courage instinctively revolt. They make that to be sin 
which the Bible does not declare to be sin. They denounce, in lan- 
guage such as the sternest prophets of the Law never employed, a 
relation which Jesus and His apostles recognized and regulated. 
They seek to institute terms and texts of Christian communion utterly 
at variance with the organic law of the church as founded by its 
Divine Head; and, attempting to justify this usurpation of Divine 
prerogatives by an appeal from God's law to the dictates of fallen 
liuman nature, they would set up a spiritual tyranny more odious 
and insufferable, because more arbitrary and uncertain in its deci- 
sions, than Popery itself. And as the tree is, so have its fruits been. 
It is not a theory, but a demonstrated fact, that abolitionism leads to 
infidelity. Such men as Garrison, and Giddings, and Gerrit Smith, 
have yielded to the current of their own principles and thrown the 
Bible overboard.. Thousands of humbler men who listen to abolition 
preachers will go and do likewise. And vvhetlier it be the restraints 
of official position, or the preventing grace of God, that enables such 
preachers to row up the stream and regard the authority of Scripture 
in other matters, their influence upon this one subject is all the more 
pernicious because they prophesy in the name of Christ. In this 
sincere and plain utterance of my deep convictions, 1 am only dis- 
charging my conscience towards the flock over which I am set. 
When the shepherd seeth the wolf coming, he is bound to give 
warning. 

An article, published twenty years ago in the Princeton Jieview, 
contains this remarkable language : 

"The opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime must operate to 
produce the disunion of the States and the division of all ecclesiasti- 
-cal societies in this country. Just so far as this opinion operates, it 
will lead those woo entertain it to submit to any sacrifices to carrj'' it 
out and give it efTect. We shall become two nations in feeling, 
which must soon render us two nations in fact." 

These words are wonderfully prophetic, and they who read the 
•signs of the times must see that the period of their fulfilment draws 
near. In regard to ecclesiastical societies, t!ie division foretold is 
already, in a great measure, accomplished. Three of our great reli- 
gious denominations have been rent in twain by the simple question, 
*' Is slaveholding- a sin ?" 



• 4.'^' ** 

































♦• ^^'-^^ • 










« • » • A 














^ ' • . • A' 



O A^ 



jp-'*. 



^/ \*^?^V V^^'/ \*^^\. 








